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Grounded in Love: Creative Leadership for Our Times

Today’s post is by Margaret Benefiel

Marches. Online petitions. Letters to the editor. “Am I doing any good?” I ask myself. “Am I making a difference? Is there another way?” In the face of injustice, wars, and humanity’s inhumanity to humanity, I long to be faithful to doing my part to heal the world.

As I walked in the footsteps of St. Francis last month, I was taken by his creativity in his leadership. He, like his role model Jesus, does the unexpected. He strips in the town square. He up and sails to Egypt to visit the Sultan in the middle of the Crusades. When rejected by the people, he preaches to the birds.

People are startled. They take notice. He gets his point across. People follow him.

How did Francis come up with those ideas? How did he have the courage to execute them?

I suspect that Francis’ creativity in his leadership had something to do with 1) his fearlessness, and 2) his endlessly rehearsing ideas in his own mind and with his brothers. Francis’ fearlessness arose from his deep groundedness in God. Rooted in prayer, in love with God, Francis feared no one. Free of fear, Francis’ imagination soared. Furthermore, he lived in community with his brothers. He and his brothers exercised their imaginations about how to lead the people. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried acting out their ideas, laughing at one another’s antics while experimenting with ways to awaken people to truth.

Francis’ deep love of God, together with his rootedness in community, liberated him to generate and execute creative ideas for leadership. His fearlessness, his willingness to do whatever he felt God called him to do, helped free his creativity. As Francis’ life demonstrates, generation of creative ideas is tied to willingness to execute them.

I wonder how I can follow in Francis’ footsteps, not only as I did physically in Assisi last month, but also in creative leadership. To be sure, marches, online petitions, and letters to the editor all have their place. The March for Our Lives rallies, for example, with 800,000 participating in Washington, DC and many more around the world, spoke loudly and clearly. Many of us are called to continue to do this work, and to do it from a deeply grounded place.

At the same time, perhaps I am called to more. St. Francis’ namesake, Pope Francis, delivered a TED talk last year, calling the world to a revolution of tender love. He demonstrates the same kind of creative leadership in our time that St. Francis demonstrated in 13th-century Italy. Washing the feet of prisoners on Holy Thursday, building showers in St. Peter’s basilica for homeless people, visiting mentally disabled children when he traveled to Assisi: all speak to his capacity to imaginatively demonstrate his concerns and invite others to do the same.

I pray that I may be more deeply grounded in God, so that I can fearlessly imagine with my community acts of creative leadership. May the leadership of St. Francis and Pope Francis inspire us all.

—This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the May 2017 eNews.

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Margaret Benefiel

Margaret became Shalem's executive director in July 2015. Prior to coming to Shalem, she ran her own consulting, speaking, training, and coaching business, Executive Soul, helping leaders and organizations nurture their souls and express their deepest values institutionally. At the same time, she taught as adjunct faculty at Andover Newton Theological School in the area of contemplative leadership. She holds a B.A. in History from Princeton University, an M.A. in Mathematics from Portland State University, an M.A. in Theology from Earlham School of Religion, and a PhD in Spirituality from Catholic University of America. She has written extensively on various aspects of contemplative leadership and spirituality at work, including The Soul of Higher Education; The Soul of Supervision; The Soul of a Leader: Finding Your Path to Fulfillment and Success; and Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations.